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Victor Von Doom
Skills Victor Von Doom is a polymath, having become an expert in several different fields of scientific study as well as the various forms of magic and arcane power. Indeed, depending on who you ask in the Marvel Universe, Doctor Doom is either the smartest man on the planet or the second smartest man, a debate that has been going on for some time now. The mundane part of his knowledge includes but is not limited to the natural sciences, engineering, political theory, economics, classical literature, musical theory and performance, religious practices and world history. As a result, he is able to create incredible devices and weapons from relatively standard materials, fusing them with arcane or even outright magical sources of energy in order to enhance them further, as well as manipulate the people around him to do his bidding or play them off against each other to rid himself of rivals. He is semi-permanently encased in a suit of armour of his own design, a marvel of advanced science and forbidden sorcery that fulfils several functions. First and foremost, it works as protection, being constructed out of an alloy similar to (though considerably weaker than) adamantium that is extremely durable and yet lightweight for easy movement, and indeed incorporates several forcefields and even an electroshock device should someone succeed in seizing him. It contains augmentative servo-motors in it's limbs and torso, increasing Victor's strength to the point where he can just about lift three-quarters of a tonne in weight, and has a variety of ranged weapons built into it's gauntlets, including a laser array, miniaturised tesla coil technology and a pair of antimatter projectors for use on extremely large or powerful targets. His helmet and mask are also similarly imbued with devices to aid him, including a psychic scrambler he developed in order to capture Pennywise that makes it more or less impossible to read Doom's mind should it be active. However, as intelligent and well armed as Doctor Doom is, he is also a deeply narcissistic and arrogant individual, and as a result is generally unable to learn from any mistakes that he makes in the course of his plans; to him, these are never his fault - how could they be? - but the fault of incompetent underlings, or perhaps flaws in the equipment. This arrogance may also cause him to underestimate opponents he encounters to his detriment. In addition, Doom is a man of honour as much as he is of science, or at least wishes to be percieved as such, and this can be used to his disadvantage; he will honour a debt, for example, even to the detriment of himself, and will not break his word if it is given. Finally, Doom's arrogance may manifest itself as a desire from sole dominance in a plan or plot, even if the more practical and easier-to-achieve solution would be to work more closely with other people, giving plans where he is involved an inherent vulnerability. Personality Doom is calculating, driven, highly creative and inventive, and detestably arrogant. Being possessed of a narcissistic complex, it could be argued that Victor is his own greatest admirer, and is fully aware of his own intelligence and abilities. He is usually fairly dismissive of other people, and will act scornfully towards those he deems beneath his notice, often outright ignoring them if he feels they cannot offer him anything of worth. However, if a person earns his respect - a fairly difficult feat - then he will treat them as a worthy contributor, but never an equal. When he fights, furthermore, he will do all in his power to utterly destroy his enemy, not merely beat them, and nothing is below him in terms of methods or targets, as long as it is done as part of his plan. In terms of relations to other people, Doom is not the kind of man who makes friends or attracts romantic admiration, and this suits him just fine. He is a fairly asocial man, and this has only increased due to his many years ruling the country of Latveria alone and unchallenged. Indeed, though he will accept allies and underlings of all kinds, it is unlikely that anyone in Pandora will ever impress Victor enough to genuinely be considered worthy of ruling alongside. Ultimately, this is down to Victor's belief that a job is most often spoiled with too many people working at it, and he believes himself to be the only one who can truly carry out the tasks he requires doing. One of the (in-universe) unspoken reasons why Doom never takes off his armour or permits himself to be seen without it in public is in fact due to his vanity, something that was wounded to this day by an accident that occured in his youth. Though nobody knows for sure what lies beneath it's metallic surface, most of the rumours agree that Victor hides his face and body away due to it being terribly scarred and burned, and the physical reminder of this mistake was too much for him to bear; as a result, he created a face that he was not ashamed to look at in the mirror, a face that would also exorcise the last elements of human weakness from him and make him what he had always strived to be; a man of steel, able to face the world and not bend to it's pressure, and always do what he saw as being necessary without the weakness of guilt or pity. However, as stated in the Skills section, Doom also holds a personal code of honour that he will not deviate from at any point. As a result, he will honour any bond or oath that he makes with a person, regardless of how he feels about them, even if this damages his plans in some way. Admittedly, Doom is not quite fully reliable, as he will stick to the literal wording of his promises, but he still makes sure to honour them. In addition, he will refuse outright to kill or even attack an enemy if they are weakened by circumstances that had nothing to do with him, as he believes it to be a wholly unfair victory if he does, and therefore utterly meaningless and shallow. Appearance As he never takes off his armour in public under any circumstances, Victor more or less looks robotic in appearance, with only his eyeholes revealing that he is human. He wears an emerald cloak swathed across his armour, lending him a regal appearance, and is tall and broad in appearance, standing at 6ft exactly. It is rumoured that under the armour, his skin is heavily burned, though as nobody has seen him without it, this remains speculation. His eyes are a blue-grey colour. The armour itself is ornate, though it's medieval-inspired look hides it's immensely advanced nature, and is the colour of burnished iron. 'Relationships' Victor is connected to the entirety of the conspiracy that aims to overthrow Arthur and seize his throne, though he is connected to several individuals in particular; Pinhead and Sebastian Shaw are his lieutenants, Shaw being responsible for leading the rabble Doom aims to cause chaos with on the Pandoran streets and Pinhead leading the interrogatory and espionage effort. He also cultivated a secret agent of sorts in Pandora's inner elite itself, Moghedien, who he aims to use to discredit Merlin and thus destabilise and worry Arthur further, though when she turned traitor, he hunted her down and killed her personally. Her replacement, Semirhage, proved to be more malleable to his goals, and it was she who accompanied him to his duel with Arthur Pendragon. Doctor Doom has also managed to capture and coerce Pennywise, enslaving him both as an occasional attack animal and eventually a power source for the machine Doom wishes to build. Naturally, it is highly unlikely that either think all that well of each other, and Doom is well aware that if Pennywise gets free he will most likely be first on it's list of targets for the humiliation of it's capture. Something similar applies to Sylvanas Windrunner, who he forcibly persuaded to join his cause as an assassin in return for her continued liberty. Doom also took part in the torture and mental reprogramming of Scott Summers, the better to use him as a living weapon in Doom's campaign of destruction. History The man who would later come to be known as Doctor Doom started life as the son of a Gypsy in rural Latveria. His mother, accused of witchcraft, was burned at the stake, and his father, a well-known healer, was forced to flee with his young son when he failed to save the life of the then-King, whose wife he had been told to cure. Though they escaped the King's guards, Victor's father died of exposure later whilst trying to cross a mountain pass. Abandoning his father's body, Von Doom swore revenge on the ruler of the land; either he would avenge the wrongs done to him, or he would be killed in the attempt. Eventually, having discovered both science and magic in equal measure and learning much from both, Von Doom moved to America, where he ran into his lifelong rival and enemy, Reed Richards. After a disastrous experiment in which Von Doom attempted to communicate with the dead, his body became permanently scarred, leading him to develop and wear the armour that he would later become famous for. Many years later, Victor Von Doom returned to Latveria to find that, using imported Soviet technology, the King had become even more opressive than ever before. Famines now were commonplace, as the royal family feasted in relative comfort. Doom had both seen and had enough.Uniting the gypsy peoples behind him and killing any who resisted his plans, he began to lead a guerilla war against the monarch, culminating in a full-scale battle for the capital city. Though the King's men were well-armed and trained, Doom was not known as a genius for nothing; he had supplemented his ragtag army with machines of his own creation, ranging from energy weapons to fully-armed battle robots. There was no way to resist his coming, and at the climax of the battle, Doom publicly throttled the king in front of what was left of his men, claiming the throne for himself. After this, he began what would prove to be a drawn-out series of conflicts with Richards, now the leader of a superhero group known as the Fantastic Four, as well as fellow superhero groups the Avengers, Young Avengers and X-Men, to name but a few. Time and again, Doom would menace them, only to be driven back to Latveria, where as much as they would like to, the heroes could not do anything about him due to diplomatic immunity and the immensely dangerous security that Doom had set up there. In his capacity as King of Latveria, Doom proved to be an iron-fisted, cruel but heavily devoted ruler, focussing in particular on the plight of the gypsy community in a rare display of concern for something other than himself whilst proving Latveria's superiority to it's rival nations and the USA by vastly improving the industrial and agricultural output of the country, and bringing high technology to the once backward land. Time and again other countries attempted to make war on this rising star of a state, only to be brutally and humiliatingly crushed every time. Eventually, however, his actions brought him to the attention of some very different beings; the gods of Pandora. The gods decided that he would be ideal for their entertainment and, after Doom had returned empty-handed to Latveria after attempting to steal the hammer Mjolnir from Thor, hoping to find a weapon even Reed Richards couldn't defend himself against, they sent their tendrils to kidnap him. Pandora History This is not the first time a being carrying the name Victor Von Doom has been seen in Latveria; a Doombot, a mechanical double of Victor's own design and creation, had previously existed here, before being destroyed by Pinhead. Upon arriving, Doom secured for himself a position as the Pandoran government's Head of experimental sciences, impressing the officials with his display of knowledge and practical ability, before learning all he could about the town, it's surrounding area of territory, and it's inhabitants. Briefly encountering Feanor in the library, he learned that humanity was not the dominant species here; indeed, there were many sentient races, some of which were even familiar to him. However, even at this early stage, his plans for escape were forming. Hunting down Pennywise with the aid of a guide (later shown to be completely expendable), Doom battled the creature, finding that the initial reports on the being's power and dangerous nature were far short of the reality; though they fought each other to a standstill, neither could overcome the other. Pennywise escaped him, and for a month Victor hunted it, finally recapturing it as it attempted to attack Hiccup Haddock and Feanor. Trapping it in a modified Dyson Sphere, Victor planned to use it as a power source and occasional weapon; his plans now were fully formed, and all they needed were the pawns for him to use. Meeting with Pinhead and Sebastian Shaw several times, Doom discussed with them his plans and the items he would require, before recruiting an army of ragtag villains and malcontents for the three of them to command; some would be used as double agents and spies, others as a direct attack force to descend on the town and strip it of materials Doom considered valuable - along with more mundane items such as money and things to be sold on the black market, to cover his true intent for the other objects. In the course of this, he also forcibly recruited Sylvanas Windrunner as an assassin, intentionally humiliating her by refusing to allow her a higher position in his scheme. Finally, Doctor Doom brought his army together for the first time, and explained to them what he wanted them to achieve, before answering their concerns and queries. As his plans came to a head, Pandora came under attack, his forces and the villains he had convinced or bullied into helping him playing their part. At the height of the battle, Doom himself confronted Arthur, and the two traded blows, the usurper gaining the upper hand for a time.. ...until the intervention of Merlin. Wounded by a counterattack from the King, Doom played his final hand, faking his own death and that of Semirhage, his companion, via two Doombots swapped in by Loki, and escaping through a portal to a previously constructed back-up base of operations under Mount Pompeii.